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Well…despite my best intentions, it's been difficult to focus on one or even two projects lately because there's just so much in the works for us at any given time.
Most recently, I've joined up with a small group of pro wrestling fans to launch a new website called The Wrestling Daily. The foundation for TWD was set many months ago when I met up with a couple of guys on a website called "Bleacher Report" (sorry folks, but you can look that link up yourselves). There's really a lot to that part of the story and maybe I'll share it some other time. For now it's enough to say that the three of us found that we have a lot in common, including our rather caustic senses of humor. Our respective writing skills and talents meshed well and because we were far from happy with some of the goings-on at B/R, we decided to set out on our own.
The mere mention of this new project generated significant interest from many other talented wrestling enthusiasts who shared our vision for a new standard in pro wrestling journalism. Of course, not everyone could be counted among our well-wishers and there were a few folks here and there who took it upon themselves to try and shake our confidence and stymie our progress. There was a fair amount of saber rattling directed at us, including threats to "silence" us and to "take action" against us (whatever that means).
The Bleacher Report guys even went so far as to delete one of my article from their site that was entitled "Building a Better Website" in which I discussed the imminent launch of TWD. It only took their thought police something like four hours to take it down, too. Turns out I apparently violated their "Terms of Use" or something like that. I kind of know what that means but consider this: In the last week alone, I've seen all kinds of garbage spring up on B/R, including a series of hateful and slanderous rants directed at a young female writer. B/R allowed these comments for fester online for over 24 hours despite the fact that multiple users flagged the offending text a number of times in a relatively short space of time.
Their virtual blind eye to hate speech aside, B/R also seems to be extremely selective when it comes to deciding what kind of promotional activity that they allow on their site. By selective, I mean that TWD is the only site to my knowledge that has been so maligned and censored by the B/R oligarchs as of late. In one recent article, a "writer" promoted a new wrestling-themed blogging site in the bold introductory text to his article. That particular piece is still unedited at present after several days online. There's also a guy who is actively recruiting wrestling writers for some kind of new blogging project on a toy store's web site. Whatever.
Now, if you don't regularly visit B/R and what I just reported above doesn't make sense to you, then you understand it all perfectly. If you are a B/R regular and you haven't seen the hypocritical shit I'm talking about, then you're either a complete dumbass or you're just not paying attention. Like I said in the introduction to the revised edition of my "banned" article: "Integrity, meet the bottom line."
On Monday, August 17, the detractors and naysayers failed and we succeeded when the inaugural edition of TWD launched. Our roll-out lasted three days and we posted a total of 12 articles, one by each of TWD's family of writers. My first piece for TWD was entitled "Lessons from the Old School: How It's Done." The piece is a look back on Ric Flair's first and only appearance on the set of Jerry Lawler's legendary Championship Wrestling show.
Venom's driving force, the mighty Cronos
There's a lot more to come from TWD and I'm looking really forward to it. The experience thus far reminds me of an old interview with the band Venom (one of my all-time favorites, as most everyone knows), in which the guys talked about how the band's impetus. They explained that they had never been happy with a lot of the other metal bands they had seen over the years, so they created Venom in an effort to become the very band that they had always wanted to see on stage. With TWD, I can very much relate to that very idea, because for so long, I had searched the 'net looking for a pro wrestling site that was coherent, interesting, and compelling. To my mind, TWD accomplishes all of these things very well and it is, indeed, the very kind of site that I have always wanted to read.
This article is for Jason, Ray and the TWD writers because you guys don't suck at all.
Please note that the above opinions are mine alone and I do not represent the writers and staff or The Wrestling Daily in any official capacity through this or any other article published on greeklish.org.
Ontario, Canada is one of my favorite places in the world. We’ve visited the area a number of times over the years and every trip has yielded great memories. One of my favorite visits was our trip to Toronto in 2005. Z. was just over one year old and the four of us – with Z. in her stroller – came to know the city well, opting to travel from place to place mostly on foot and through the use of the city’s subway system. In our short time in Toronto, we came to appreciate the omnipresence of hospitality and diversity on the streets of the city.
While visiting Niagara Falls in 2008, I reflected a bit on the trip to Toronto as well as on all of our visits to the area from years past. I had been reading a lot of Allen Ginsberg’s work around this time and – although I’m not comparing my work to his – I can honestly say that I felt his influence as I sat at the desk in our hotel room one night. With that in mind, I took pen in hand and wrote about my appreciation for Canada in verse.
Our northern excursions have been on my mind again lately, especially because I now enjoy regular correspondence with a number of friends who live throughout Canada. Up to now, the only person with whom I’ve ever shared a single one of my poems is Thomaï. She always been kind to me, which is something I truly appreciate. However, I am certain that the support and encouragement of one’s spouse is not really the most accurate gauge as to the quality one's particular work. So, I thought that now might be as good a time as any to share this poem with everyone who might be interested in knowing something of my affection for Canada and its people.
Canada, I Love You
Canada, I love you for your Loonies and Toonies, and your healthcare for everyone, and how you told America to “suck it” over the wars. I love you for your Horseshoe Falls, for your legions of French-speakers, and all your diversity on the streets. For your Maple Leafs, and the mother of three who said, “Look at the fireworks, eh!” I love you for your “No tax on Maple Syrup!” and your QEW, and for the stand against WTO in Montréal. I love you for your cosmopolitan cities, with your street-corners full of congregations: men of faith, break-dancers and drummers, Hekmatists spreading the word, men holding hands on the subway, black folks, asians, “whitefolk” – melting together in a river of humanity. Canada, you are not the United States of America, and I love you for it.
23 July 2008; Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada [Revised 31 July - 1 August 2009; Dayton, Ohio]
As I've noted before, one of my favorite things to do as a parent is to share interesting and unusual books with our girls at every possible opportunity. Sometimes, the results aren't terribly well received, like the time I read aloud from an old inductive logic book over dinner or the night I shared some passages from Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Other times, the girls are genuinely interested in what I am reading and they ask me to share a bit with them. I have, of course, obliged on a number of occasions, sharing pieces from books like Chaim Potok's The Chosen and Richard Poe's Afrocentric historical study Black Spark, White Fire.
There was also the wonderful evening when I received a rare first printing of Voltairine de Cleyre's Selected Works in the mail and the girls sat by and watched closely as I carefully opened the book, showed them de Cleyre's portrait and read some of her poems for them. (To this day, Baby Z. says she will someday have a daughter named Voltairine. Really.) I must say that it's nice to help our girls to develop interests and knowledge that extends beyond the limitations of mass marketing and popular culture.
Last Friday afternoon, I was sitting on the swing in front of my in-laws' house enjoying a rare, gentle July breeze as I relished the end of the workweek. I took advantage of this down time to read some of Brecht's play Mother Courage and Her Children which I had started a week or so prior. My rather busy schedule had prevented me from spending more than a few minutes every few days with the book.
After a short time, the girls noticed that I was sitting outside and Baby Z. ran out to join me. She scrambled up into the swing next to me, grabbed a hold of my arm and laid her head on my chest. She looked down at the book and said, 'Read that book to me.” I had just finished the section in the book in which Mother Courage's son Swiss Cheese was executed, so I figured that the next few pages might be rather unremarkable.
So, I started reading to Z. from the beginning of Scene Four but about halfway down the page, I realized that I had indeed come upon some subject matter that wasn't entirely age-appropriate for my young, audience. This scene featured a young soldier who was furious with his captain and was looking to exact some revenge. I stopped reading as I scanned the remainder of the page to see what I had gotten myself into and I silently read the following:
YOUNG SOLDIER: Screw the Captain! Where is the son of a bitch? Swiping my reward, spending it on brandy for his whores, I'll rip his belly open!
AN OLDER SOLDIER (coming after him): Shut your hole, you'll wind up in the stocks.
YOUNG SOLDIER: Come out, you thief, I'll make lamb chops out of you! I was the only one in the squad who swam the river and he grabs my money, I can't even buy myself a beer. Come on out! And let me slice you up!
I wasn't entirely sure what to do at this point, as Baby Z. seemed fairly interested in the subject matter and I have to admit that it's awfully nice to have my little one cuddled up next to me, intent on sharing in what is so obviously rather interesting to me. So I substituted my own "revised” version of the passage and said something like this:
"Well, ummm…See, this young guy is mad at the Captain – really mad, see – and he wants to get the Captain really, really badly because the Captain took his money….or something. And he's really going to get him, I guess. And then this other guy comes along and tells him to be quiet, but the young guy won't because he's really mad. Yeah."
It was at this point that Baby Z. hopped down from the swing abruptly and said, "Okay…Can we do something else?” I asked her if she wanted to know what happened to Mother Courage and she said, rather matter-of-factly, "That book is boring.” Then she toddled off to the garage to get her tricycle so she could ride it in the driveway for a while. Ah well, it was nice for a moment, anyway.
I wondered if Brecht is really boring to a 5 year-old or if it was just came across as boring because I dumbed it down. Whatever the case, I always appreciate the candor of our girls and I figure that someday when they come back to these authors and books of their own accord, they might feel a small spark of recollection and ultimately end up with some greater appreciation for what we've tried to share with them along the way.
Our small publishing venture, Erythrós Press and Media, his yielded its first official publication. The book Red Youth: Young Heroes of the Great Patriotic War went on sale earlier this week through our online store. This book is hopefully the first volume in a series of books that will chronicle the outstanding achievements of the youngest fighters in the Soviet Union's struggle against fascist Germany during World War II. This volume tells the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was the first female fighter of World War II to be named "Hero of the Soviet Union."
I have been preparing materials for this project as far back as late 2004 when I began transcribing the entire contents of Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya's 1953 book The Story of Zoya and Shura for greeklish.org. Shortly thereafter, I began research for an annotated version of the book that I hoped to publish in print at some point in the future. I did quite a bit of work on this project, compiling a huge annotated manuscript and reams of notes, but I shelved the project after I developed many questions and concerns regarding Soviet and Russian copyright law.
A while later, I resurrected the project, first intending to produce a single-volume work which featured biographies of a number of young heroes, including Zoya, Marat Kazey, Elizaveta Chaikina, Zinaida Portnova and others. Realizing I had a significant amount of material on Zoya alone as a result of my previous research, I settled on the idea of developing a multi-volume set that would include newly annotated transcriptions of public domain, Soviet era documents along with my original introductory notes and supplemental information. This first volume of Red Youth is thus the culmination of over four years of work.
I have a tendency towards self-criticism and this tends to effect how I feel about things at the end of a relatively long project. Such is the case with Red Youth. Upon my initial perusal of the finished product, I immediately noticed a few block quotes that weren't properly indented and a missed line break or two. That wasn't so bad. Probably my most unfortunate oversight (which I noticed a bit later) was my failure to include V. I. Lenin's name in the table of contents listing for his 1920 work "Tasks of the Youth Leagues." The document itself is properly noted and cited later in the text, but I would have liked for an important feature like the table of contents to be completely accurate. A good friend put things in perspective for me, however. He told me that having a handful of imperfections gives the work a feeling of credibility that might not otherwise come with an immaculately produced product from a big, bourgeois publishing house. I suppose that is a nice way to look at it.
Whatever the case, I need to get to work promoting and distributing the work to spread the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya far and wide once again.
Quite a few of my close friends helped me with this project through hard work, patience, encouragement and support. Below is the complete text of my "Acknowledgments" section from the book. A number of people from around the world contributed significant time and effort toward the preparation and enhancement of this book. I am especially grateful to my friend Andy Blunden for his assistance and guidance in all aspects of my work, with particular appreciation for his help in formatting and editing the complete text of this volume. Brian Reid and Clara Statello also assisted in proofreading and editing of most of the documents contained herein and their critique and support were vital to this endeavor. Randy Graham also helped by proofreading selected documents.
Mitch Abidor provided much-needed advice and encouragement at a critical point in my writing.
I thank Tim Davenport from the Early American Marxism website for providing source material. I am also indebted to Steve Palmer and my other fellow volunteers of the Marxists Internet Archive for their collective assistance with a number of research topics.
My friends Einde O'Callaghan, Nina Lebed, Antonis Megremis and Nikos Loudos assisted with the translation of selected passages from source documents and research materials.
I also extend my heartfelt gratitude for my dear friends who have inspired me through their political work and activism. I am thankful to know Panos Fidis, Sam Berner, and many of the students and supporters of the Freedom and Equality Seeking Students of Iran. It is their work and struggle that inspires me to move forward in numerous endeavors, including this project.
I am fortunate to have the friendship and tutelage of David Walters who has provided me with valuable camaraderie, guidance and insight for almost a decade. I am certainly a better person for knowing him.
Finally, I must express my deepest appreciation for the love and companionship of my wife Thomaï. She is my most important supporter and critic and she is responsible for everything good and decent in my life.
With my attention divided amongst a host of real life and net-based endeavors, I have been slow to comment on the situation in Iran despite the fact that I have a great deal of interest in the developments which continue to unfold hour upon hour. I am following the news as closely as possible, reading accounts through the mainstream media as well as the host of user-generated news sources on the Internet. My dear Iranian brothers and sisters -- those within Iran and throughout the world -- are never far from my thoughts these days.
The current situation in Iran is one that should surprise absolutely no one. From the egomaniacal and demagogic mullahs to the courageous workers and students who now fill the streets of Tehran and other cities in protest, surely they must have all known that history would bring them face to face at this particular juncture. Indeed, what is occurring in Iran right now must happen. Irrespective of the outcome this time around, it is the Iranian people who must move forward in pursuit of a better quality of life and a collective existence that is free from the scourges of oppression and intolerance that were foisted upon them after Political Islam's betrayal of the 1979 Revolution.
One of the most particularly interesting dimensions of the international response to the current events in Iran has been the fact that American progressives and liberals must now come to grips with the despotic nature of Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling clique. For some time, a number of currents and tendencies of the American left have stood firm on a shameful and baseless conviction that Ahmadinejad is the peace-loving face of the anti-imperialist movement. Now, as the brazen chicanery of the theocracy's election fraud proceeded by its brutal and reactionary response to democratic and popular dissent is exposed to the world, those who have ignored and obscured the true nature of Political Islam must now face the reality of the horrors which they have tacitly and implicitly endorsed through their silence, including the slaughter of left opposition activists and Marxist dissidents, oppression of women and religious minorities and the torture and murder of homosexuals and labor leaders.
In a discussion of previous elections in Iran back in 2001, the late Mansoor Hekmat shared his enthusiasm that the Iranian people might someday mobilize and wrest political power from their oppressors. He said:
"Now, it is reaction that is against the mainstream and it is we who represent the majority. Victory is possible and achievable. This is the essence of the current political situation in Iran." (full text)
As enthusiastic as these words were eight years ago, they ring true today as the people of Iran stand just one great stride from a new direction forward. History is on their side as the people of the world support them in their struggle for freedom and equality.
Aluta continua! Personal postscript: For the past several months, I've been wrapped up with a handful of projects, some of which are serious and others…well, they were not so serious. In any event, I've resolved to return to some of the things that have been so important to me over the past several years, including my writings on greeklish.org as well as a few other web-based projects. Just this week, I've resumed work again on the development of an archive of the works of Josip Broz Tito, adding a short excerpt from a 1955 interview with Radio Belgrade. More works from 1941-1961 are forthcoming as are additional documents for one of my favorite subject archives of MIA, the Yugoslavia Subject Section.
Last weekend I was driving around listening to W.A.S.P.'s 1992 album The Crimson Idol. I've had a second-hand copy of the album for a while now and I must admit that up to, I had never managed to get through the whole CD, start to finish. After listening to the entire 2 CD set Double Live Assassins last week, I decided to give The Crimson Idol another shot. Towards the end of the album, I discovered the song "Hold on to My Heart." If there is a better heavy metal ballad, I have never heard it and – after listening to this song at least 20 times since Saturday afternoon – I can't imagine what a better one might sound like. This is just power ballad perfection.
One of my favorite series from greeklish.org is last year's "Mixtape Mixdown: 25 Favorites" series in which I counted down the tracks from my mix CD of all-time favorite songs. For a few months, I have been thinking about compiling a new CD of "forgotten favorites" to showcase some prospects for a new compilation of my 25 (or maybe 30) favorite songs. I am sure that "Hold on to My Heart" will be a contender for the revised list.
It probably won't be much of a surprise to a small number of folks that the song "Mean Man" will be in the running as well. Hell, that song is top ten material, for sure. Maybe even top five! Horns up!
Marxists Internet Archive Publications has published the first three volumes of CLASSICS IN ACTIVITY THEORY, reprints of English translations first published by Progress Publishers in the 1970s, of the second generation of Soviet followers of Lev Vygotsky. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, while remaining in the public domain, these works have become unavailable, in most cases even on the secondhand market. And yet there remains a vast research community across the world that builds on Vygotsky and Activity Theory.
Each of the three books beginning the series is a collection of the English translations from one of the three authors: Alexei LEONTYEV, Alexander MESHCHERYAKOV and Evald ILYENKOV, plus a short preface by Prof. Mike Cole of the University of California, San Diego. Every university or education faculty library should have this series. Titles included are, from Leontyev, The Development of Mind: The Problem of the Origin of Sensation, The Biological and Social in Man’s Psyche, An Outline of the Evolution of the Psyche, The Historical Approach to Study of the Human Psyche, The Development of Higher Forms of Memory, The Psychological Principles of Preschool Play, The Theory of the Development of the Child’s Psyche, Child Development and the Problem of Mental Deficiency, Activity and Consciousness; from Ilyenkov, The Ideal in Human Activity: Dialectical Logic, Activity and Knowledge, The Universal, The Concept of the Ideal, Reflections on “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” and Meshcheryakov, Awakening To Life: Deaf-blind Children, Problems of Deaf-blindness, Forming Behaviour and Developing Their Minds, Learning Programmes for the Deaf-blind.
Volumes are available from Erythrós Press and Media for US$25 + postage per volume but purchasers of all 3 books -- or 4 books with the purchase of Hegel’s Logic -- pay a reduced price of $20 per book with reduced shipping costs.
Last night, I caught the huge WWE event at Dayton's EJ Nutter Center. It's worth mentioning that the Nutter Center is really in Fairborn. I am surprised that Wright State still advertises that Nutter Center is in Dayton, seeing as how the Gem City's current claim to fame is that we're on the Forbes list of America's fastest dying cities. Something to be proud of, I'm sure. Leave it to the spectacle that is sports entertainment to take our minds off the spiraling malaise of our economic recession...even if it's just for one night.
Anyway, the last WWE event I attended was back in October 2007 and as great as that show was, last night's show was way better. Plus, this time around I landed ringside seats. This was a big first for me and it was every bit as exciting as I'd hoped. Just like the last time, I made a sign in support of CM Punk and I had it with me throughout the show.
The event was actually three WWE shows in one, including tapings for both ECW and SmackDown! as well as two matches for WGN's Superstars show.
The ECW show was the first one of the night and for a little while I thought I might be able to hold it together without completely losing my mind. But once Tommy Dreamer made an appearance, I completely flipped out. To me, Tommy Dreamer is true wrestling greatness. Vladimir Kozlov was pretty exciting as well and I am completely loving his new "Lundgrenesque" training montages and entrance themes (complete with Red Army Choir music and archival film footage). The formation of the new incarnation of The Hart Foundation was a great moment as well. I was disappointed that Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart's daughter Natalya didn't see any action in the ring, but at least she made an appearance during the show.
Seeing Rey Mysterio wrestle twice in one night was pretty cool. He had an impressive bout with Shelton Benjamin for the Superstars show. Once SmackDown! started, I had the feeling we were in for a really good show and the opening match certainly got things headed in the right direction. CM Punk's tag partner was John Morrison and they took on The World's greatest Tag Team in what I thought was a sound, solid match. Punk and Morrison had surprisingly good chemistry considering their heated rivalry some years ago when they fought over the ECW championship.
I'm not a huge fan of the Divas division, so I wasn't really enthusiastic about the tag match. But Gail Kim is pretty impressive and it was really something to see her in person.
Edge before the SmackDown! main event.
Jericho and Edge stole the show with some really caustic mic work that set the stage for a phenomenal main event. When GM Theodore Long booked Jericho vs. Edge as the final SD! match of the night, I went crazy. It was kind of unexpected to see the two biggest heels square off going into a pay-per-view weekend and these guys are two of my all-time favorites, so it felt like something really special. Early in the match, I wasn't sure who I'd root for but once Jericho locked in the Walls of Jericho of Edge, I knew I was pulling for Y2J. I jumped up and charged towards the barrier yelling, TAAAAP! Tap, Edge! Edge is gonna taaaap!" Some 10 or 11 year-old kid started yelling "No he's not!" at me. I looked at him and smiled for a second and then I started heckling Edge again. Once Edge got out of the hold the kid was like, "See?" Yeah, whatever. I kind of freaked out when I saw Edge apply what looked to be a Sharpshooter on Y2J and I think other people were as shocked as I was. It was a great moment.
The ending for the main event seemed to be something of a letdown at first, but after Edge was laid out (courtesy of a run-in by Jeff Hardy, if I remember right), the real excitement started as CM Punk's music hit and he charged down the ramp with the Money in the Bank suitcase. For a minute there, I thought he was going to cash in his contract and win the title just like last time. I knew it was unlikely given that the weekend's PPV card was set, but or a second there, it almost happened. I ran into some friends after the show and one of them told me, "When CM Punk's music hit, we thought he was going to win the title for sure tonight! We were so happy for you!"
My hair is tied back
and I'm all sweaty and hoarse... but I'm also very, very
happy!
Umaga came out and squashed CM Punk's shot at the title, but Punk did deliver a massive blow to Umaga's face with the MITB case and that was pretty cool. The ensuing melee saw Edge and Hardy take their fight into the crowd as Jericho, Mysterio, Punk and Umaga fought all over the damn place. It was chaotic, but very well done.
After the SD! Taping concluded, the crew set up the steel cage for a non-televised championship match featuring Jeff Hardy and Edge. Edge retained the title in a short but well-choreographed match.
It was a great night and I have sure come a long way from sitting in the nosebleeds at Rupp Arena with my dad and my older brother. Of course, I do have some really good memories of those days many years ago. Now my daughters keep asking if they can go with me to a live wrestling event. One of these days – once they're old enough to handle all of the noise, drama and excitement of a bombastic WWE supercard -- it will sure be a lot of fun to make some new memories with them.
I took some photos and posted them in a gallery here. Anyone who has been to an event like this knows it's kind of tough to get good photos in this setting, but I think this batch is okay.
I went up to Wright State a couple of weekends ago to do a bit of research. Some things never change, and one thing in particular that hasn’t changed is the amount of graffiti in the stalls of WSU’s restrooms. I was really taken with all of the writing (and carving) on the toilet paper dispenser in the men's room at the Dunbar Library. Some of it was weird and some of it was funny, but one thing I read was so unexpected that I had no choice but to take a snapshot of it with my phone so I could ponder it later.
May 1st is May
Day, which is also known as International Workers Day. This
holiday is observed in many countries and locales, in
recognition of the achievements of the working people of the
world.
May 1st
also marks the anniversary of the beginning of the 1886 nation-wide
strike in support of the eight-hour workday. In Chicago, a
mass meeting in support of the workers' movement ended tragically with
the "Haymarket Massacre" on May 4.
From 1880 on, I became wholly engrossed in the labor movement. In all the great industrial centers the working class was in rebellion. The enormous immigration from Europe crowded the slums, forced down wages and threatened to destroy the standard of living fought for by American working men. Throughout the country there was business depression and much unemployment. In the cities there was hunger and rags and despair. Foreign agitators who had suffered under European despots preached various schemes of economic salvation to the workers. The workers asked only for bread and a shortening of the long hours of toil. The agitators gave them visions. The police gave them clubs.
Particularly the city of Chicago was the scene of strike after strike, followed by boycotts and riots. The years preceding 1886 had witnessed strikes of the lake seamen, of dock laborers and street railway workers. These strikes had been brutally suppressed by policemen’s clubs and by hired gunmen. The grievance on the part of the workers was given no heed. John Bonfield, inspector of police, was particularly cruel in the suppression of meetings where men peacefully assembled to discuss matters of wages and of hours. Employers were defiant and open in the expression of their fears and hatreds. The Chicago Tribune, the organ of the employers, suggested ironically that the farmers of Illinois treat the tramps that poured out of the great industrial centers as they did other pests, by putting strychnine in the food.
The workers started an agitation for an eight-hour day. The trades unions and the Knights of Labor endorsed the movement but because many of the leaders of the agitation were foreigners, the movement itself was regarded as “foreign” and as “un-American.” Then the anarchists of Chicago, a very small group, espoused the cause of the eight-hour day. From then on the people of Chicago seemed incapable of discussing a purely economic question without getting excited about anarchism.
The employers used the cry of anarchism to kill the movement. A person who believed in an eight-hour working day was, they said, an enemy to his country, a traitor, an anarchist. The foundations of government were being gnawed away by the anarchist rats. Feeling was bitter. The city was divided into two angry camps. The working people on one side hungry, cold, jobless, fighting gunmen and police clubs with bare hands. On the other side the employers, knowing neither hunger nor cold, supported by the newspapers, by the police, by all the power of the great state itself.
The anarchists took advantage of the widespread discontent to preach their doctrines. Orators used to address huge crowds on the windy, barren shore of Lake Michigan. Although I never endorsed the philosophy of anarchism, I often attended the meetings on the lake shore, listening to what these teachers of a new order had to say to the workers.
Meanwhile Vile employers were meeting. They met in the mansion of George M. Pullman on Prairie Avenue or in the residence of Wirt Dexter, an able corporation lawyer. They discussed means of killing the eight-hour movement which was to be ushered in by a general strike. They discussed methods of dispersing the meetings of the anarchists.
A bitterly cold winter set in. Long unemployment resulted in terrible suffering. Bread lines increased. Soup kitchens could not handle the applicants. Thousands knew actual misery.
On Christmas day, hundreds of poverty stricken people in rags and tatters, in thin clothes, in wretched shoes paraded on fashionable Prairie Avenue before the mansions of the rich, before their employers, carrying the black flag. I thought the parade an insane move on the part of the anarchists, as it only served to make feeling more bitter. As a matter of fact, it had no educational value whatever and only served to increase the employers’ fear, to make the police more savage, and the public less sympathetic to the real distress of the workers.
The first of May, which was to usher in the eight-hour day uprising, came. The newspapers had done everything to alarm the people. All over the city there were strikes and walkouts. employers quaked in their boots. They saw revolution. The workers in the McCormick Harvester Works gathered outside the factory. Those inside who did not join the strikers were called scabs. Bricks were thrown. Windows were broken. The scabs were threatened. Some one turned in a riot call.
The police without warning charged down upon the workers, shooting into their midst, clubbing right and left. Many were trampled under horses’ feet. Numbers were shot dead. Skulls were broken. Young men and young girls were clubbed to death.
The Pinkerton agency formed armed bands of ex-convicts and hoodlums and hired them to capitalists at eight dollars a day, to picket the factories and incite trouble.
On the evening of May 4th, the anarchists held a meeting in the shabby, dirty district known to later history as Haymarket Square. All about were railway tracks, dingy saloons and the dirty tenements of the poor. A half a block away was the Desplaines Street Police Station presided over by John Bonfield, a man without tact or discretion or sympathy, a most brutal believer in suppression as the method to settle industrial unrest.
Carter Harrison, the mayor of Chicago, attended the meeting of the anarchists and moved in and about the crowds in the square. After leaving, he went to the Chief of Police and instructed him to send no mounted police to the meeting, as it was being peacefully conducted and the presence of mounted police would only add fuel to fires already burning red in the workers’ hearts. But orders perhaps came from other quarters, for disregarding the report of the mayor, the chief of police sent mounted policemen in large numbers to the meeting.
One of the anarchist speakers was addressing the crowd. A bomb was dropped from a window overlooking the square. A number of the police were killed in the explosion that followed.
The city went insane and the newspapers did everything to keep it like a madhouse. The workers’ cry for justice was drowned in the shriek for revenge. Bombs were “found” every five minutes. Men went armed and gun stores kept open nights. Hundreds were arrested. Only those who had agitated for an eight-hour day, however, were brought to trial and a few months later hanged. But the man, Schnaubelt, who actually threw the bomb was never brought into the case, nor was his part in the terrible drama ever officially made clear.
The leaders in the eight hour day movement were hanged Friday, November the 11th. That day Chicago’s rich had chills and fever. Rope stretched in all directions from the jail. Police men were stationed along the ropes armed with riot rifles. Special patrols watched all approaches to the jail. The roofs about the grim stone building were black with police. The newspapers fed the public imagination with stories of uprisings and jail deliveries.
But there were no uprisings, no jail deliveries, except that of Louis Lingg, the only real preacher of violence among all the condemned men. He outwitted the gallows by biting a percussion cap and blowing off his head.
The Sunday following the executions, the funerals were held. Thousands of workers marched behind the black hearses, not because they were anarchists but they felt that these men, whatever their theories, were martyrs to the workers’ struggle. The procession wound through miles and miles of streets densely packed with silent people.
In the cemetery of Waldheim, the dead were buried. But with them was not buried their cause. The struggle for the eight hour day, for more human conditions and relations between man and man lived on, and still lives on.
Seven years later, Governor Altgeld, after reading all the evidence in the case, pardoned the three anarchists who had escaped the gallows and were serving life sentences in jail. He said the verdict was unjustifiable, as had William Dean Howells and William Morris at the time of its execution. Governor Altgeld committed political suicide by his brave action but he is remembered by all those who love truth and those who have the courage to confess it.
As I've noted before, one of my favorite things to do as a parent is to share interesting and unusual books with our girls at every possible opportunity. Sometimes, the results aren't terribly well received, like the time I read aloud from an old inductive logic book over dinner or the night I shared some passages from Marcuse's 
So, I started reading to Z. from the beginning of Scene Four but about halfway down the page, I realized that I had indeed come upon some subject matter that wasn't entirely age-appropriate for my young, audience. This scene featured a young soldier who was furious with his captain and was looking to exact some revenge. I stopped reading as I scanned the remainder of the page to see what I had gotten myself into and I silently read the following:
With my attention divided amongst a host of real life and net-based endeavors, I have been slow to comment on the 
